Don't Wait Up

by Liz Astrof

  Before I left for work, Angela asked me what the souvenir policy for the day was. At some point, it had become routine that everywhere they went, we would buy the kids something. I made them promise to behave, to be good listeners, to neither whine nor melt down, and they could get one thing each. And we all went our separate ways.

  A few hours later, Starbucks in hand, I watched from the comfort of my office a video Angela sent me of my kids at lunch. They were having an actual, honest-to-God blast. Phoebe’s greasy, chubby fingers ripped her fortune cookie apart, while Jesse read his lucky numbers out loud, one dumpling speared on a single chopstick.

  They were beautiful. Good, sweet kids, just being kids for that all-too-short childhood any of us get. It made my heart hurt—how much longer before my son lost that raspy little-boy voice of his? How long before my daughter’s fingers lost that chubbiness I loved so much? How much of their childhood was I going to watch on an iPhone?

  I felt disconnected. And guilty. I hated myself for not being the one to have taken them on their adventure.

  About an hour later came a picture of the “souvenirs” they wanted.

  I’d assumed Phoebe would get some Chinese fan that I’d find collecting dust under her bed that weekend and that Jesse would go for a plastic car that would break on the ride home and wind up in our graveyard of discarded toys. Instead, I found myself looking at a photo of two green turtles, each about the size of my thumb.

  Turtles? Since when did they like turtles? We were the only family at our preschool that didn’t host Fred, the class tortoise, for a weekend (one of our dog’s appetites has been known to lean toward the exotic). At least two of the Taylors died on the kids’ watch (not that we ever told them). My kids were less “animal kids” and more . . . animals.

  But Phoebe and Jesse were clearly smitten over these little baby green things. And I was still under the guilt-inducing influence of that idyllic video. Desperate to make them happy, or at the very least to not be the person who ruined the moment, a part of this joy, I replied to the text:

  Fine by me!

  and figured Todd would of course do his part and reply:

  No turtles!

  This was our pattern. Due to my guilt at being a working mother and the fact that my intense need to be liked extends to my children, I’m the parent who gives in to their every whim, foisting on Todd the unfortunate task of denying their dreams and breaking their little hearts. This heartbreak is important because, according to the many parenting books I’ve read the backs of, parents who give their children everything they want ultimately release them into the world as lazy, greedy asshole adults who can’t handle disappointment.

  When Todd didn’t respond within his usual thirty seconds, I called him. He didn’t answer, either. I called again. Still no answer.

  He always answers, so naturally I assumed he was dead. I tried him one more time in case he wasn’t dead, which would be the only excuse I’d accept at that point.

  And again.

  And again.

  He finally answered. “What’s up?!” He sounded out of breath.

  “I thought you died,” I said. “Can you respond to the turtle text?”

  “What ‘turtle text’?”

  Apparently, Todd was “busy” and hadn’t seen the text, which left me wondering what he was so busy doing that he hadn’t been following the day’s events, including the subsequent texts from Angela, who had by now bought the turtles. Was Todd “busy” having an affair? The thought was taking over my entire brain—or would have, had Todd not immediately texted back a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles image.

  It was then that Angela sent me a link to an article about the illegal sale of baby red-ear slider turtles in Chinatown, and while it was smart of her to do some research and see what we were getting into, I couldn’t help but wonder if it was a little passive-aggressive that she didn’t do the research until after purchasing exactly those turtles for the kids.

  I read the article and was relieved to learn that the reason the turtles were illegal was not because they were gang related, stolen, or stuffed with drugs, but that they were merely riddled with diseases like salmonella, with 163 outbreaks reported in Los Angeles since their arrival.

  These were the creatures my possibly vindictive nanny had purchased and my possibly cheating husband had approved. Two Baby Mutant E-Coli Turtles that were going to kill us all.

  I called Angela and, over the gleeful, thankful shouts from the kids, I screamed, “Nobody touch the turtles with your bare hands!” I may be an absent mother, but I more than make up for that in neuroses.

  Angela asked what they should put the turtles in when they got home. What did she mean, put them in—didn’t they come in some sort of . . . turtle house?

  They did not.

  Didn’t the people who sold them say what we should put them in?

  They had not—the turtle smugglers, in fact, barely spoke English.

  I shot Todd a new text, telling him to stop at Petco on his way home and ask (without asking) what someone (not him) would need for illegal baby red-ear slider turtles (that he definitely did not possess). I would have gone myself, but I really didn’t want to go to jail, and he was the one probably having an affair, and this was all his fault anyway, so he deserved prison.

  In person, the turtles weren’t that gross. They were almost cute, even—tinier than in pictures, maybe the size of a quarter. Jesse, flush with excitement, introduced me to his turtle Janoris, who he named after a football player, and Phoebe’s turtle she named Panda because she loves pandas. Naming an animal after another animal, however, is something that infuriates Jesse to no end. Phoebe clearly did this just to fuck with her brother.

  The turtles were bopping around in their temporary housing—a Tupperware container with a rock in it and three turtle “pellets” that looked an awful lot like those fried Chinese noodles to me. Jesse was clearly smitten but was just as clearly growing anxious for them to “get settled into their permanent habitat.” I promised him that his dad would be home soon with everything they needed, never imagining that two five-dollar black-market turtles could possibly need more than a few more rocks and a good flush at the end of the week.

  Thirty minutes and four hundred dollars later (after Petco Member Discounts), Todd walked in the door with a 75-gallon tank, two lamps, all kinds of filters, and turtle food. That list wasn’t even including tank décor and shrubbery. The tank was bigger than the dog’s crates. Combined. It was bigger than my first apartment.

  I couldn’t understand why these teeny things needed an Olympic-sized pool. Todd explained to me how he learned at Petco that “his friend’s” turtles were going to grow—because they were babies and babies grew into adults. My astonishment illustrates how little I dwell on what babies do.

  It got better. As they grew into adulthood, Todd continued, the turtles would become territorial, so eventually we would need two tanks. Eventually? There was an eventually that went beyond, say, Memorial Day at the outside? How long did it take for them to go from butter beans to territorial adults to dead?!

  “With proper care, the red-eared slider will live forty to seventy years,” Jesse read from the red-ear slider brochure Todd had picked up.

  Forty to seventy years.

  Basically, the turtles were people. Illegal people who would grow up to hate each other and, possibly, us. We had two more insane people living under our roof. Except they wouldn’t be going away to college or moving out at all. Ever. When we looked for retirement homes, we’d have to ask, “Where can we bring the turtles?”

  That was when Angela regaled us with a story about her aunt who was survived by her sixty-five-year-old turtle, Hank, who could open the refrigerator himself and was still alive. Her “fuck you” well and truly complete, my nanny then grabbed her jacket and her copy of In Cold Blood, wishing us a good weekend as she closed the door behind her, sealing us up with our fate. Fates. For forty to seventy years.

  Jess
e was now on the verge of a nervous breakdown, terrified that the turtles would expire before being moved into their new home. Todd told him firmly that it was going to take a while to set up the tank and the filters, and that the guy at Petco promised that the turtles would be fine in the Tupperware until the morning.

  Which was my cue for a nervous breakdown. “You didn’t tell him we have these things—did you?!” I screamed.

  He had. The guy had asked him point blank if he got them in Chinatown, and Todd had said yes. Because Todd couldn’t lie about anything except being “busy” having an affair.

  Neither of us slept much that night. I lay in bed thinking how every time the doorbell rang, I was going to think it was the Department of Environmental Conservation—basically, Turtle Immigration. I’d be like Lorraine Bracco in Goodfellas, except instead of cocaine, I’d be flushing turtles down the toilet.

  I woke up the next morning to the sound of the bells on our backdoor jingling. This was Crash, our puppy, telling us he needed to go outside. We’d spent a lot of money having him trained to do this with his nose (and give high-fives). And it would have been worth it, if he didn’t consistently shit on the carpet immediately after ringing the bells.

  Still, I was up and decided to try and make an early yoga class.

  I went downstairs, and was surprised to find Todd bent over the dining room table, which was now covered in turtle products and pages of directions. Jesse was hovering nearby. Every time he got too close, Todd would take him by the shoulders, walk him backward across the room, and leave him there. Within seconds, Jesse would reappear over his shoulder.

  “Whatcha doin’?” Jesse would say for what I had no doubt was the thousandth time, trying to appear casual.

  Thrilled as I was to see Jesse was getting exercise (and yes, that does count as exercise for Jesse), I could see that he was driving Todd crazy. I gave my son a stern talking-to about “bubble space” and asked him to remember some of the calming techniques his therapist taught him—we had literature on deep cleansing breaths and stuff, but I was pretty sure I’d thrown it out with the previous year’s art projects. I went to press down on Jesse’s head, like I’ve always done to help calm him, but he was getting taller and I couldn’t get leverage. So, I just watched him make yet another break for Todd, which allowed me to make my own break for my mat and keys.

  “I’m headed for yoga!” I announced. “Back soon!”

  Todd understood that my yoga classes were a necessary way for me to blow off steam due to working so hard. So, I was stunned into almost silence when, rather than wish me namaste, my husband asked me to stay home and please keep Jesse occupied until he was done setting up the turtle tank. “Or I might put him through a wall,” he said, almost completely serious.

  Now there were two of us pacing and asking Todd if he was done yet. At one point, Todd looked up at me, his face red. He was sweating, his eyes were a little . . . crazy. A handy guy, especially for a Jew, he seemed to have met his match with this filtration system.

  Phoebe, meanwhile, did not give one solitary shit about the turtles, having moved on to the soda-flavored Lip Smackers I’d ordered her from Amazon (another gift born of my working-mother guilt). Her disregard for these little beings, about whom she cared so much only the day before, was borderline chilling.

  Jesse, on the other hand, was obsessed enough for them both. A raw nerve, my hyper-empathic son was growing more and more worried about the turtles’ welfare by the minute, feverishly consulting the turtle care pages he’d downloaded from the Internet. He was worried that they still hadn’t eaten their pellet. They were becoming “listless” and “lethargic.”

  “They’re turtles.” I tried to assure him. “They’re supposed to be listless.”

  Jesse glared at me and informed me that was in fact a turtle misconception. Ask Google.

  By then, Todd was done with the tank. My heart soared—I’d make the 9:15 class!

  One hitch—we had nowhere to put the tank.

  In full authoritarian mode, Todd announced that there was no surface big enough, deep enough, or strong enough to hold the tank. We needed a credenza. Until we had one, life was on hold.

  Jesse fell to his knees and howled as if credenza were some form of torture. Before I could even log onto the Restoration Hardware website for something chic, Todd left to find a credenza—and left me to take care of the kids.

  I started doing yoga in my mind as I fought to block the sound of Jesse rattling off red-ear slider turtle “red flags” from the literature he’d amassed.

  “Mom? Do their eyelids look puffy?”

  “They are not puffy. There is nothing puffy about them.”

  “Is that mouth discharge?”

  “No. That’s just a mouth.”

  Somewhere around his asking me to check their anuses for worms, I finally reminded Jesse it was spring break and he could use his electronics, which sent him joyfully off in search of dystopian worlds to destroy. I hoped.

  Then Phoebe appeared, ordering me to close my eyes before shoving a Lip Smacker lip balm directly up my nostril and demanding I guess the flavor.

  “Orange soda,” I guessed.

  Wrong. Grape. She shoved another at me. And another.

  “Mom? Which one do you think is cuter?” Jesse had reappeared, his iPad spewing images of red-ear slider turtles.

  “They’re all cute,” I offered lamely.

  “Close your eyes!” Phoebe shouted. She’s very loud.

  Obediently, I closed my eyes again. It’s no secret: Phoebe scares me a little.

  “But which is the cutest?” Jesse asked again.

  I opened one eye and pointed, randomly.

  “You don’t think this other one is cuter?”

  “You’re right. That one’s cuter.”

  “But which is the cutest?”

  A Lip Smacker shot up my nose.

  “THEY ARE ALL CUTE!” I screamed. “PHOEBE, I ONLY SMELL ORANGE! YOU ARE MAKING ME VERY SICK!” Where were the kids from the Chinese food video? The ones I wanted to hold onto forever?

  I wanted to go back to the day before.

  No. I wanted to go back to my twenties.

  I’d settle for yoga. And a house with a husband in it and turtles that weren’t.

  “Mom, did you know red-eared sliders get their name from the small red stripe around their ears? And the slider in their name comes from their ability to slide off rocks and logs and into the water quickly!”

  I wanted to watch the little fuckers slide into a quart of wonton soup. Instead, I grabbed the iPad and told Jesse he couldn’t use it to look up information, only for violent video games and inappropriate YouTube videos. He reminded me that we put parental controls on the iPad when his friend Carter’s mom called about his bad language after a playdate at our house.

  I promptly took the parental controls off his iPad and sent him on his way. Desperate times.

  Finally, Todd returned with a hideous bright green, water-stained credenza he’d bought for $250 from a fish store that was going out of business. Behind him, dragging the other side of the credenza, was Warren, a bald man in his midfifties sporting a long white beard, faded arm tattoos, and cargo shorts with black socks—basically, a guy who looked like he worked at a fish store. For $80 an hour, Warren was going to help Todd put the filter together.

  The $5 turtle total was now at $740. I half-jokingly asked Warren if it would be kind of us to return the turtles to nature via the LA River that runs right behind Jerry’s Famous Deli. Neither Warren nor Jesse found this even half-funny. Jesse pounded hourly-compensated Warren with turtle questions, driving the turtle total up to $820.

  Finally, Warren was gone, the filter was properly attached to the tank, and it was time to fill ’er up. Jesse went outside to turn the hose on, as I turned to my shell of a husband.

  “How mad are you at Angela right now?” I asked conspiratorially.

  “I’m not mad at Angela,” Todd said.

  �
��You’re not?” He was clearly mad at someone.

  “Angela asked,” Todd said.

  Oh, he was mad at me.

  ME?!? “You’re the one who said yes, Todd!” I shouted.

  “I NEVER said yes!” he shouted back.

  “Yes, you did . . .!” Grabbing my phone, I went back into the previous day’s texts. There they were: the lunch video, the text from Angela asking if they could get the turtles, pictures of the turtles . . .

  I continued to scroll, scroll, scroll, past my “Fine by me!,” past Angela’s article about illegal turtles . . . all the way to a picture of the kids in the kitchen with the turtles.

  “I was in a meeting,” Todd said. “I never responded. Remember? You called me six hundred times?”

  I was getting a little nauseous, and not from my daughter’s lip shit this time. “Well . . .” I stammered, “What kind of meeting were you in that you couldn’t respond? Are you having an affair?!”

  “I was in a meeting for work,” Todd said quietly. “You forget I have a job sometimes.”

  “No, I don’t!”

  I do, though.

  I do forget whenever I’m writing. And that somehow, he’s always there for me, making it look easy as I bounce ideas off of him and ask him to read things over and over and over. He’s always there when I’m in a ball on the bathroom floor because I can’t think of a joke. Always ready to take care of the kids when I have to hole up in a hotel for the weekend to meet a deadline.

  And of course, when I go to yoga every weekend, no matter what.

  I forget—that’s not his job.

  I pay no attention to the fact that he might have somewhere else to be, mentally or physically, that isn’t with me or our kids. I give him zero space for himself.

  How could I ever think Todd would have an affair? He has no time for an affair. I don’t even give him time to not answer a goddamned text. Or have a job all his own that gives him the same satisfaction that, for all its insanity, my work still gives me.

  As if two kids, two dogs, a gecko, a gorgeous but vindictive nanny, and a slightly feral mommy weren’t enough, now I’d added turtles that were going to outlive us to Todd’s front-loaded life. And forgotten that my husband not only had a life—he deserved one.